If this is happening to Dell, the company with the highest standards and toughest audits, should we assume that other manufacturer takeback programs’ e-waste is also being exported to developing countries, even if they have a policy forbidding it?

March 19, 2015. This is the reason why research on e-waste exports that is based on official export records is very unreliable, and grossly understates the amount of e-waste being exported. Smugglers are not going to say they are exporting CRTs. …they lie about the contents, and say it’s plastic or scrap metal.

While the report doesn’t answer many of the relevant questions about e-waste exports, it does contain important acknowledgments supporting the need for federal legislation, like the Responsible Electronics Recycling Act introduced in the 112th Congress

Yesterday a bill was introduced in Congress that would make it illegal for U.S. “recyclers” to simply export our old electronic products to developing nations, instead of actually recycling them. It’s an atrocious but widespread practice – recyclers can make more money selling our old electronics to brokers who send them to China, India, Viet …